Ray skid-stopped in front of Yolanda’s Braid Palace, his once-a-week haircut spot. He popped his board off the street, caught it, told himself, ‘You are one cool moth-erfucker. Play this right and today’s the day she’s gonna let you kiss ’em. You can do this.’
He was in love with Yolie’s tetas, especially when she leaned them onto his shoulder to clip the top of his head. She wore tight T-shirts that went just halfway down her stomach, a sapphire stud in her belly button, tight jeans, brown lipstick, sparkly blue eye shadow. She smelled like cotton candy, vanilla and sometimes, when the day was hot, salt. Even though she was old, like forty or something, she was the most seriously fine woman in Washington Heights.
Ray figured Yolie loved him back a little, because why else would she stick her big brown breasts in his face when she was gelling down his ugly red hair? Then again, she stuck them in everybody’s face. But Ray wasn’t past taking charity teta. A man’s gotta have dreams. He’s gotta eat, dream the charity teta, maybe throw in a cool pair of sneakers, and the rest is gravy.
He parked his skateboard by the door, plopped into a folding chair and waited for Yolie with six other kids in love with Yolie’s breasts. He pulled his Scientific American out of his back pocket and pretended to read an article about something called string theory but really he was checking out Yolie’s booty. He waited until the other kids got their cuts and left, their hands in their front pockets to hide their chubbies. They didn’t really love Yolie, not like Ray did. Ray dreamed not just of sexing Yolie up but of marrying her too. In the dreams he was saving her from tragedy, bandits raiding the wedding or a flood. Lots of slow-motion action scenes, his dream hair perfect, his dream body ripped, no need to wear a goddam shirt.
Gradually the string theory article pulled him in to the point where he forgot about Yolie, a feat as amazing as string theory itself, which suggested that down at their core, things weren’t really made of anything. That atoms were nothing more than strings of energy. The guy who wrote the article thought this was cool. Ray didn’t. ‘How’s that possible? Nothing solid about life?’
‘You talkin to me?’ a kid leaving the shop said.
‘You’re up, amor.’ Yolie called everybody amor. She patted the salon chair.
Here we go. Kid Ray, you’re the dawg. Be suave now. ‘’Lo, Missis Y-Yolie,’ he whispered, afraid to look Yolie in the eyes. He sat in the chair, his heart bashing his ribs. Somewhere in the last ten minutes the sky had turned black and puked a downpour of summer hail, and now the shop was empty except for Ray and Yolie. Ray didn’t expect he’d survive this haircut. His heart was really slamming now. But what a way to go.
Yolie wrapped Ray in a smock. ‘Y’all know there’s a barber shop across the street, right?’
‘Yes ma’am.’
‘Okay. It’s just, this is a braid shop, you know? I don’t know how it got out that I cut hair. I ain’t even licensed to cut hair.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘That’s what the last kid said.’ Yolie’s wristwatch alarm went off. ‘I gotta go to housin court, chico. You know how it is.’
Dag, Ray thought. ‘I’ll come back later.’
‘No no, you stay. This one is free if you let my niece practice on your head. She’s up from the island, cut heads down there. She real good.’
‘Um, gracias, Señora Yolie, pero está bien.’ Ray hopped out of the chair.
‘Sit.’ Yolie pushed Ray back down with her hands some but mostly with her breasts. Ray caved into the chair. Yolie yelled to the back of the shop, ‘Amor, y’all finish up the bookkeepin later. I got a sweetie pie waitin on a haircut here.’ She mussed Ray’s head, made for the door. ‘That gorgeous red hair, so thick. I don’t know why you won’t let it grow. We could roll it to dreads and put red bead shells in it.’
Ray imagined how long hair and red bead shells would make him look. He figured he’d look pretty much the same, fat, except with long hair and red bead shells. He was sweating under the plastic smock. He closed his eyes and dreamed of Yolie. She was kissing him on the mouth, caressing his neck—
She caressed his neck. Ray opened his eyes to the mirror and saw behind him a girl, fifteen, maybe even sixteen. She wasn’t really caressing his neck but dusting it with powder before she put the paper towel around it. ‘Hi.’
Hi, Ray almost said, his voice lost who knew where but nowhere he could find it for speaking use. This chick was too beautiful. She was like Yolie but young. She even smelled the same. Her hair was long black loops. Her eyes were black.
‘How you want me to do it?’ she said.
‘Huh?’
‘Your head.’
‘My head?’
‘Maybe the same but shorter?’
‘Um, the same but shorter.’
She went to work on Ray’s head. ‘You’re funny-lookin kind of.’
‘I am so.’
She laughed. She had a great laugh, loud and warm like goddam José’s. ‘That came out bad,’ she said. ‘Like, you look like you’d be funny, I mean.’
‘I’m like not that funny, though.’
She laughed through her nose, cut Ray’s hair. ‘Hold still, sweetie pie.’
You did not just call me sweetie pie, he almost said. Yolie called him sweetie pie all the time, but that was an old lady saying it. This was a real chick saying it now. Oh. My. God.
The girl spun the chair so that Ray faced her. ‘You a’right? Your head’s turnin all red and you’re breathin funny. You havin a heart attack on me?’
‘Swallowed my. Gum. It’ll pass. Don’t worry, no need to break out the defibrillator just yet.’
‘What?’
‘No, like I’m sayin I won’t go into cardiac arrest on you, you gotta start the cardiopulmonary resuscitation.’
‘You a smart-type dude, huh?’
‘Psh, nah.’
‘Yeah, then what’s this?’ She grabbed the magazine he’d rolled into his hand. ‘Scientific American, eh? String theory? Most boys your age be readin Hustler.’
‘I read Hustler too.’
The chick winked. ‘I got the feelin you’re one of those brainiacs, tries to hide it so your boys don’t give you bad play. It’s in your eyes.’
His eyes? Her eyes. He wanted to speak differently with her, to use almost proper English, maybe even half-decent grammar, God help him. He couldn’t speak, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He chewed his gum to work up some saliva to unglue his tongue.
‘Came back up, huh?’ the chick said.
‘Huh?’
‘The gum you, ahem, swallowed.’
Shit. ‘Can’t keep a good gum down.’ Do not talk anymore. Do, not, be, a, loser. For five seconds. Try.
She offered her hand for a shake. ‘Trini.’
Ray stared at this Trini chick’s hand. He’d never touched a woman before except for when he’d accidentally bump into one in the crowded street or when one cut his hair, and those times he knew the chick was just touching him because she had to. But here this chick wanted to touch him, to hold his clammy overgrown paw. ‘Trini?’
‘That’s my name,’ Trini said.
Ray nodded as he shook Trini’s hand. Static electric shocks numbed his fingers. He wondered if she felt them too.
‘I don’t suppose you have a name?’ she said.
‘Yup.’
Trini laughed an aria. ‘What is it then, your tag?’
‘Ray. Mond.’
‘Mond? That’s a slick last name, boy. Ray Mond, James Bond. P.S., you seen that new Bond boy? He’s off, the, hook fine, ohmygod.’
‘No, I mean like R-Raymond. All one word.’
‘Oh, Raymond!’
That laugh. That music. Them eyes. Ray’s legs shook. He was going to wet himself. ‘I got to go to the can.’
‘Go ’head, sweetie pie. It’s in the—’
‘I know, thanks.’ He’d only tossed off in there a hundred times while waiting for haircuts. He ran to the bathroom, his legs so shaky he had to sit to pee.